On Aug. 15, 2005, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services raised its ratings on Sprint Corp. and Sprint Capital Corp., as well as on Nextel Communications Inc. and Nextel Finance Co. The corporate credit rating on Sprint was raised to 'A-' from 'BBB-', and the rating on Nextel was raised to 'A-' from 'BB+'. The ratings on these entities were removed from CreditWatch, where they were independently placed with positive implications in October 2004 based on operating and financial improvement. These ratings remained on CreditWatch following the Dec. 15, 2004 announcement of the merger agreement between Sprint and Nextel. With the completion of the merger, Sprint Corp. is now known as Sprint Nextel Corp. The rating outlook on Sprint Nextel is